


Stealing Third Place

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Our Numbered Days [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, breaking up, settling in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1969026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has never had much to prove.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stealing Third Place

**Author's Note:**

> One OC smokes a lot of pot. So warning for drug use there.

Sam never had much to prove. He was the youngest of three, the only boy. No one compared him to his sisters or cousins. He went into the military with the honest hope of helping people and a dangerous love of high places. He learned how to heal in a place of pain, spread his wings and flew. He came home, wiser and sadder, but unbroken. He gravitated towards his fellow soldiers, glad to look them in the eye. He knew how it was to come home in body and have your mind wandering distant sands. 

If he couldn’t resist following Steve’s unbowed shoulders into battle, well that wasn’t proving anything, except that Captain America was a persuasive son of a bitch. Riding shotgun with him across America to find a greasy haired assassin only confirmed Sam’s excellent judge of character. Steve was loyal in a frighteningly intense and focused way, but he pulled over for every stranded car as if it never occurred to him to do otherwise. 

You could build a nation on Steve’s back. 

Sam decided on that trip that it was up to him to make sure no one ever would. 

He also decided that he was going to transfer to New York. 

“I’ve got rooms to spare,” Stark looked him over the first day they arrived back, sweating and nasty in Manhattan's dense heat wave. 

“Thanks,” Sam shivered in the sharp air conditioning. “But I’ll keep my own place.” 

And he meant it. He kept his own place, his own patch of ground. Sam preferred his third story walk up in a half-gentrified, half-immigrant neighborhood with graffiti scrawled between coffee shop windows. It was different than D.C., but he found a grocery store that sold all the ingredients for his mother’s recipes and a decent local library with an abundance of audio books. 

On the nights he stayed home, he ate sweet potato soup with the windows propped open and velvet voiced readers told him about other worlds. He played tower defense games with cartoon faces on his tablet, catching strains of other people’s music played too loudly. 

On the nights he went to the Avengers Complex of Complexes, he shared in a world tour of take out with mismatched groups of residents. On one memorable evening, he broke bread with Nick Fury, Thor and Pepper. They spent most of the meal explaining the Korean War to Thor, who listened with a sad tilt to his lips and declared, 

“Sometimes I think that to live as a sentient species is to harm each other. Once I thought my people’s lifespan made us different, but these days I am not so sure.” 

“To err is human,” Pepper shredded pita between her fingers. 

“My Jane said this to me. Because to forgive is divine. But what is divinity?” 

And that’s a heavy question when the man asking it was technically a god. Sam pushed his plate away. 

“I guess it’s the standard we hold ourselves to,” he suggested. 

“Or there’s no such thing at all,” Fury said. “Forgiveness is overrated. Change...now change is something else altogether.” 

“You mean change or doing penance?” Pepper asked tartly. 

“Why can’t one be the other?” Fury’s empty eye looked just over Thor’s shoulder, roving as if to search out secrets in the blind dark.

It wasn’t always like that. In fact, it was usually more like playing retro video games with Clint on a flat screen television of illegally good proportions or coaxing Steve away from Bucky for some time in the sunshine. Other times, it was fighting all the goddamn shit that got in the way of the world running smoothly. 

And the rest of the time was still Sam’s. Still his space free of absurdity of being heroic. He worked, talked to people who’d seen ordinary horrors and gave them what held he could. He went for walks over broken sidewalks and patches of green. Sometimes he took the train home to D.C. and just spent a long weekend with his mother and father, cutting their lawn, drinking a beer with his middle sister or working on the tree house that was always nearly falling down. 

“Where do you go?” Bucky asked him once. It was one of Bucky’s good days, calm and thoughtful. Steve was away, Pakistan last he checked in, and Sam took Bucky out for runs lest the guy get a complex about the outdoors. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You just...aren’t here. Not on mission, but not here.” 

Sam bought him an iced coffee that Bucky drank with a furrowed brow, looking disjointed in the placid forest green and beige of the Starbucks. 

“This is my niece and nephews,” Sam pulled the photos up on his phone. “They’re Alice’s kids, she’s here with her partner Donny.” 

Bucky’s fingers ghosted over the photos. He mouthed the names as Sam spoke them as if committing them to memory were vitally important. 

“My other sister, that’s her with the sundress, she’s going to be a dentist. Just finishing up her degree now. Dad is over the moon, he always wanted a doctor in the family. He’s a pharmacist. Mom is an administrative assistant for a defense contractor.” 

“You visit them,” Bucky glanced up at Sam under dark eyelashes. At odd moments, Sam thought he could see the man that Steve saw. Like the wind sweeping sand away from fossilized bones. 

“Yeah. It’s nice.” 

“My parents...” Bucky started, stopped, eyes searching the air for answers. “My..my father. He worked at the docks. My mother took in sewing.” 

“Yeah, she ever teach you how?” 

Bucky’s fingers swayed over the pictures, two of them pinched around an invisible needle. That wasn’t unusual. It was his body that remembered first, much mangled mind following behind. 

“I used to fix up Steve’s shirts when he got in a fight,” Bucky said, molasses slow. “Had to do it on the sly or he’d get all...him about it.” 

“Yeah,” Sam grinned, “okay, I can see that.” 

“Clothes are different now. Disposable.” 

“Hey, you ever feel like practicing, I’ve got some buttons you can reattach.” 

Bucky didn’t say no and on a hunch, Sam brought him the shirts. The sewing was messy, not the drilled perfection of the Winter Soldier, but the buttons stayed on. Bucky presented them neatly folded and with quiet satisfaction. 

Sam met Rhodey at an official Stark event. Rhodey had been recruited as Pepper’s stand in date while Tony tried to pretend he wasn’t half-dead with pneumonia. Sam went as Steve’s plus one because there was an expensive Stark bought tuxedo in Sam’s closet and nowhere to wear it. 

“It’ll be boring,” Steve warned, looking more like he was marching into battle than making small talk with New York’s elite. 

“I doubt that.” 

It wasn’t boring at all. Sure the people were mostly dull, but the women were beautiful and the music was good. Sam danced with a few heiresses and took Pepper for a turn. 

“Who taught you to dance?” She asked with a pleased smile as he kept easy time. 

“You’ll laugh,” he warned. “But I learned in down time in Iraq. One of the guys knew how, he’d gone to boarding school somewhere, and it filled a few hours, you know?” 

She didn’t laugh, but her smile did widen and he had to wonder if Tony had taught her how to look like a shark after a kill or if he’d learned it from her. Either way, he was pleased to discover that it wasn’t aimed at him after all, but someone she’d spotted over her shoulder. 

“Here,” she drew him off the dance floor and to her spot at the head table. “Keep Rhodey company. I have to go take care of someone.” 

“Remember that tears look bad at formal events, “ he called after her, but she made no appearance of having heard. 

“Just be glad Tony’s not here. They shouldn't be allowed to double team. Doesn’t give the other person a fighting chance.” 

Sam turned and found a pleasantly annoyed face pointed out to the dance floor. 

“You’re War Machine?” Sam sat down in Pepper’s empty seat. “Man, you are legend!” 

“Iron Patriot,” Rhodey said with a sigh. “Just call me Rhodey. I’d go for James, but there’s no hope of it sticking Tony around.” 

There were ranks and positions involved, but Sam dutifully shoved them aside. Informality suited him better these days anyway. Not like Steve would know real protocol if it bit him on the ass. 

“I can make an effort.” 

“Don’t bother,” Rhodey turned his attention on Sam sizing him up. “You do some nice flying.” 

“Thanks. Your suit is a little more impressive.” 

“Probably not as agile.” 

They paused for a long beat as the music segued into something slow. 

“Want to find out?” 

Going flying in a tuxedo wasn’t advisable, but it did have the benefit of making Sam feel like James fucking Bond. They flew upstate, racing and talking shit over the comms. Rhodey took them in for a landing at West Point. Then he gave Sam a midnight tour of the airfield which was probably on the borders of illegal. By the time they got back to New York, the sun was rising in wavy colors through a vaseline smear of clouds. Rhodey gave Sam his number and they started meeting for drinks on the regular. 

Maria Hill found out about their outings and appeared on night with an order of vodka on her lips and a list of complaints typed up on her phone. She put Pepper on speakerphone and texted Darcy, who showed up with a package of Oreos. When the bartender protested, she slid three Oreos to the guy with a waggle of her eyebrows. 

“Top secret stuff,” she told him and he subsided into the background. 

If the bar visit segued into semi-regular poker games that also served as Avengers bitch sessions then that was probably for the best. Sam and Rhodey switched their bonding time to Sunday afternoons over coffee which was definitely easier on their livers. 

“Why can’t I come?” Tony asked, eyes suspiciously bright. 

“Because we talk about you the whole time,” Rhodey said gravely. 

“Liar,” Tony subsided with a frown. 

“I’m allowed to have other friends,” Rhodey reminded him. “Remember? We talked about this. You’ve got your high powered clubhouse and I get the armed forces.” 

“I want a divorce,” Tony huffed, but he winked at Sam when Rhodey turned his back in annoyance, so that was all right. 

All in all, New York wasn’t so bad. 

Sam loved D.C. with it’s cherry blossoms and warmth of home. His New York life was worth loving too. Summer faded and New York showed off it’s better season with the sudden appearance of red leaves and hot nut vendors. Sam sat on the stoop of his building sometimes with a big bag of sweet walnuts and shared them with his stoner neighbor, who explained String Theory to him with red eyes and waving hands. 

In February, the Avengers went ice skating at Rockefeller Center for publicity. Steve politely declined to get on the ice, choosing instead to lean over the wall and keep his hand out for Bucky to catch up as he went by. It was a catch and release that made Sam want to roll his eyes and then pack them both off to a beach somewhere. 

Tony was a menace, showing off by running circles around Pepper and nearly taking out Bruce, who hovered tentative in the center of the rink. Natasha moved like she’d been born to it, one hand tucked at Clint’s elbow to hurry him along. 

For his part, Sam drank hot chocolate with Darcy and Jane. They were both pink nosed in the chill, wrapped up in layers of scarves. 

“We’re from the southwest,” Darcy whined behind her wraps. “This is cruel and unusual punishment.” 

“I like the cold,” Jane cupped her hands tighter around her paper cup. Thor was elsewhere, else-world. “As long as I’m inside while it’s happening.” 

“No one’s looking at us,” Sam pointed out. “We could be inside right now.” 

“You’re a fucking genius,” Darcy decided. 

They wandered into a Chinese restaurant, gathering around steaming plates and bottles of sweating beer. Darcy did most of the talking and Jane seemed content to let her. Darct reminded Sam of his middle sister and he teased her like she was until she was laughing and poking at him in indignation. 

The whole time though, Sam half-watched Jane. She looked worn thin and preoccupied. It could be a genius scientist thing, but he doubted it. When Darcy dashed out to take a call from her long distance fuck buddy (her term, not Sam’s), he asked cautiously, 

“Everything alright?” 

“Yes?” She frowned at her own answer. “No. Maybe. I mean... I don’t think I want to be in a relationship right now.” 

“Um, wow. Does Thor know that?” 

“Yes. Sort of. We talked about it. But I do love him and he ditched his entire planet for me...” 

“Hey, he ditched his planet for a lot of reason. It sounds like a pretty fucked up place, all told.” 

“Yeah. His father alone...” Jane shuddered. 

“You have to do what you need to do. You stick with him out of obligation and it won’t work out.” 

And that was really all he said on the matter. Later, he’d look back and turn the conversation over and over, but he was almost certain that he hadn’t meant anything more than he said. After all, the good doctor had said she didn’t want a relationship. That was some clear language. 

If Sam was a little concerned about her after the breakup became gossip fodder for the masses, who wouldn’t be? 

“The paparazzi follow her,” Steve said gravely on one of their runs. “They say pretty terrible things about her.” 

“That’s modern media for you,” Sam kept pace for minute. “Why does she stay in the tower then? I mean, they know where she is that way.” 

“I think she’s afraid to come out.” 

That just wasn’t going to stand. There were already too many scared people holed up in that glass hive and Sam was damned if one of the near normal ones was going to go the way of the shut ins. 

“I’ve got a shitty rental car,” he offered her later that day. They stood in the door of her laboratory at awkward angles to each other. “No one will think to look in it. You can crash on my sofa for a night or two if you want to get out of here.” 

She clutched folders to her chest with one arm and a pen in her free hand with a grip that suggested she could push it right between someone’s ribs if it came to it. Her hair curled out of a bun, escaping medusa-like. 

“Darcy says I should take a break,” she looked reluctantly back at her lab. “Do you have cable?” 

“I’ve got Netflix and a portable connection to the Stark movie collection.” 

“What are your feelings on reality television?” 

“Guess it depends on the show.” 

For two days, one of the foremost scientific minds in America sat on his couch eating sour cream and onion potato chips and watching every episode of Project Runway ever aired. Sam learned too much about asymmetry and the disturbing attractiveness of Heidi Klum. By the end of the marathon, he had a serviceable Tim Gunn impression that he turned instantly on Jane. 

“You’ve got a half-day to make an entire outfit out of snack food bags,” he told her crisply, “I’m not sure I like the direction you’re heading, but...make it work!” 

She laughed and shredded one bag into a fringed belt which she proceeded to model very seriously down the slim aisle between the coffee table and the television. That night, she fell asleep at a nearly normal hour and woke up in time to go running with him in the morning. He hadn’t expected her to be much of an athlete, but apparently her trim figure wasn’t just genetics. She was a better match for him than Bucky or Steve with their ridiculous enhancements, even if she occasionally faded into a brisk walk when something caught her interest. 

His stoner neighbor was sitting out on the steps when they wound their way back and he greeted Sam with a lazy wave. 

“Hey, man, thought you were...hey. Hey,” the guy sat up straighter his normally hooded eyes blown wide. “You’re Dr. Foster!” 

“Yes?” She glanced warily at Sam, who tensed. He didn’t want to have shake down his neighbor to demand his silence, but he would if had to. 

“Man, you’re work on the Einstein-Rosen bridge is like totally...” he puffed both hands out at his temples. “My mind, it was blown. I can’t wait for the rest of it to get released from all that bullshit red tape cause that hint was killer. Is it true that you found a solution to Goldbach too?” 

“No,” the tension eased out of her, “that was a rumor. I think my intern’s intern started it on a Facebook page.” 

“You guys want some lunch? Cause I would gladly share out some vegan pizza if you’d be up for it.” 

The stoner’s name was apparently Phillip and he was a grad student at Columbia. Sam had never actually seen him leave the apartment building and assumed he was some kind of musician with too many episodes of Cosmos under his belt. 

“I’m writing my dissertation on fractional charge particles. Mostly I go to the lab in the middle of the night,” Phillip served them a surprisingly edible pizza. “I’m only tangentially interested in astrophysics, but a man can’t live by particles alone.” 

“I haven’t been paying much attention to other fields the last few years,” Jane frowned. “I’ve been too focused.” 

“It’s okay,” Phillip patted one of her hands. “We can always expand our minds.” 

Their conversation flew of Sam’s head, but he stayed tuned in anyway. He liked how Jane leaned forward, attentive and expressive. She didn’t let Phillip talk over her nor did she suggest at any point that he stop calling her ‘Dr. Foster’. Maybe she’d grown used to overzealous grad students and the setting of the conversation didn’t matter to how she treated them. 

She went back to the tower that afternoon, but she left behind a thank you note written on a nice piece of notepaper. Sam started a new audiobook as he set his apartment back to rights, but had to begin all over again an hour later when he realized he hadn’t heard a word of it. For the first time, it was a little too quiet in his apartment. 

He’d sort of figured that that was the end of the whole thing. Life ticked on. Steve and Bucky figured themselves out and became ten times more pleasant to be around, Rhodey came back from a mission with a bag of coffee that smelled like God had ground it up and Clint gave Sam archery lessons on lazy Thursday afternoons. Back home, his sister graduated and earned her right to work on strangers' teeth. They celebrated with a loud backyard party that wound into the night. 

Spring was good. Summer returned, vengefully hot, and Tony opened the shady pool roof with a triumphant ribbon cutting and cannonball contest. Sam spent every non-working hour in the water. Morning laps replaced morning runs with Steve slicing through the water like Michael Phelps and Bucky practicing dive after dive. Bruce once joined them and proved to have an uncanny ability to hold his breath, actually rivaling Steve. The two of them would sink to the bottom and zen out with the light refracting around them. 

“That’s just not right,” Sam commented. 

“Steve used to be asthmatic,” Bucky said. He was sitting on the end of the diving board, watching Steve with a ruthless intensity. “He’d get a little excited about something and then it was all huffing into a paper bag.” 

“Huh.” 

Beneath the water, Steve was grinning into the chlorine. 

“This is better,” Bucky actually smiled. Sam hadn’t seen him really go at a grin before and he could suddenly take a guess at what Bucky must’ve looked like all those years ago. It was nearly as disconcerting as the Not Breathing Club. 

As far as Sam could tell, Natasha had not once put a single toe into the water. She came out wrapped from head to toe in light linen robes and tucked herself under an umbrella. 

“Why are you even out there?” Sam teased as she propped a tablet on her knees. She slid her sunglasses down her nose, a smile hinting at the corners of her mouth. 

“For the view.” 

“But you can see that from-” 

“Geronimo!” Clint appeared from...somewhere and reclaimed his title as King of the Cannonballs. When the tidal wave subsided, he bobbled to the surface in nothing, but a grin. 

“No!” Sam groaned. “This is not a nudist colony, Barton!” 

“Don’t be jealous of my booty!” 

There was a tattoo on the small of Clint’s back. Sam wasn’t sure, but he thought it might be Natasha’s signature. He could’ve asked, but after the incident where he’d walked in on Natasha talking Bruce and Clint through the installation of sex swing, Sam had figured ignorance was bliss. 

“Don’t worry, the chlorine takes care of all the germs,” Natasha muttered. 

“That is not the point,” Sam groused. 

Luckily, Clint didn’t bother with the pool often. Just often enough that Sam had a hard time looking at him without getting a vivid picture of each and every scar etched under his clothes. 

It was nearly the end of the season when Jane emerged blinking into the sun one morning, wearing an ill fitting swimsuit and a thick coat of sunscreen. 

“Do you mind if I do laps?” She asked, kicking off battered sneakers. 

“Nah, I’m just pruning myself in the shallow end.” 

She was a competent swimmer, if not a particularly graceful one. Sam leaned back on the steps, watching the clouds trail by overhead. It would rain later, he thought. Thunderstorms that wouldn’t be heard in the isolating swaddle of the Tower, but would sound like drums on the ancient roof of Sam’s apartment building. 

Jane came to a soft landing beside him, her legs free floating out before them. Her toenails were painted lavender, chipped around the edges and he wondered how that came about. She wasn’t the type to bother much with personal details beyond basic hygiene. Sometimes she smeared on a pinkish lip gloss, but it was left carelessly behind on glasses and mugs. 

“I was on the swim team when I was a kid.” Her lavender toes curled and uncurled, tiny ripples in the surface of the water. 

“We had a lake not far from our house,” Sam laughed. “I guess it was a sort of team, but the sport was more like competitive drowning.” 

“I got a lot of participation ribbons,” she shrugged. “Can I come home with you tonight?” 

“Sure. Want to do tacos?” 

He figured she needed a friendly face or a break from the Tower. They walked around his neighborhood, got tacos and ate them on his fire escape. Phillip generously donated two beers to their dinner as they came in the front door. 

“You know, Bruce once asked me how you started a relationship,” she said, apropos of nothing. Her legs were threaded through the wrought iron, dangling free in the air. She held the bottle of beer in both hands as if it might drop away. 

“He seems to have figured it out.” 

“I guess. I wish I’d given him advice. Sometimes, I think I’m not a very good friend,” she huffed an annoyed sigh. “I don’t listen, I get wrapped up. My head is in the stars most of the time.” 

“Yeah, but stars are your thing. You can find earthbound people, any day. Me, I like the sky way better.” 

“But you’re here too. How do you do that?” She looked at him as if he might really have the answers. “How do you live in both places at once?” 

“I guess because I like being helpful more than I like flying. If I had to choose,” he frowned. “I don’t know if it something you can decide about yourself. And maybe you need both kinds anyway. You need head in the clouds and feet on the ground types.” 

She put down her beer bottle and picked up one of his hands. Her fingers were small, delicate where they wrap around his palm and trace over his lifeline. Sam waited, watching her think. The taste of hot salsa lingered in his mouth. Somewhere overhead, an annoyed gull screeched out a warning and below, the traffic rumbled by. The light was orange-gold in that everlasting evening of summer. 

“How do you feel about one night stands?” She asked, eyes still on his hand. 

“Uncomfortable, usually. Never felt like I could do my best if I only had one shot at it.” 

She nodded as if she’d already guessed that. 

“What about friends with benefits?” 

“Never tried.” 

“Want to?” 

He stared at her. It wasn’t that he was oblivious to her. He’d noticed her wide clear eyes and the curve of her lips. He’d taken in the shape of her body, not his usual type, but appealing in its own way. In the swimsuit that morning, there hadn’t been many secrets left with the cling of it. He had just never seriously considered things going that way. Never really taken her in with a thought toward the bedroom. 

“Can you stay just friends with someone you’re sleeping with?” He asked. “Cause, I dunno. Seems tricky.” 

“I think you can. I just...I don’t want to date or anything. I’m not really wired for it. I just want to hang out and have fun. I never did that,” she bit her lip and finally did look up. There’s nothing in her expression that contradicts her words. “I was a bore in college for the most part and then I had to work three times as hard as any guy to get noticed in grad school by my mentor. Then I found my research. There were men. I wasn’t a nun or anything, but I bought into the whole long term serious thing. It was what I was supposed to do. You know?” 

“I guess, yeah. I mean, I always thought I’d do the long term thing someday. Just haven’t met the person yet,” he shifted a little. “Friends with benefits always seemed like it might cause a lot of drama though.” 

“You’re the least dramatic person I know.” 

“You’re surrounded by prima donnas, so I don’t think that means much,” he laughed. “I mean Tony and Bruce alone...” 

“Bruce isn’t much of a show boater.” 

“Giant green rage monster.” 

“Okay, I guess that’s a little dramatic,” she refound her own smile. “Look, if it’s too weird we can pretend I didn’t- I like being your friend. So.” 

“So,” he agreed. “How about we sleep on it?” 

“Okay.” 

He hadn’t actually meant her curling up beside him in bed, but it had been a long time since he’d had some company and it surprised him how much he’d missed it. She was a compact sleeper, sticking to her side and not generating much extra heat. At some point in the night, she flattened out and he’d thrown his arm over her waist. They woke up within a few minutes of each other, the intimacy striking home immediately. 

“Let’s get breakfast,” she declared stretching until her t-shirt rose over her concave belly. She had a birthmark next to her belly button. It was a half-innie, half-outie. It was cute. 

“Nah,” he tiptoed fingers from the point of her hip to her navel. “Let’s stay in.” 

The sex was startlingly good, considering that he hadn't come in with that initial spike of attraction. Jane may claim to living a boring life, but somewhere along the way she’d learned to be open and playful in bed. She didn’t make much noise, but she had a great laugh that spilled out of her when she came. Afterwards, he asked her to shower with him, sure that she’d turn him down, but pleased that she didn’t. 

“I always liked this,” she ran a bar of soap over his chest, intent on her actions. “Skin feels different in the water.” 

She used his soap, the pine smell clinging to her as they finally made their way to something more like brunch than lunch. There was a cafe with coffee and croissants that they ate at a too small table that forced Sam to bracket his legs around hers. 

“I had a breakthrough in my research yesterday,” she told him, peeling apart the croissant in layers. “I’ve been working on that project for Tony, figuring out if the Einstein-Rosen bridge could have other applications. Like fast travel here on earth.”

“And can it? Cause that’d be pretty revolutionary.” 

“Turns out no. Breakthrough was...well. All the models are bad.” 

“Bad how?” He leaned in. 

“Bad, like world tearing apart at the seams. I told him we needed to bury it. Scratch it out so it never existed.” 

“Ouch. How long were you working on that?”

“Months. But it’s based on the rest of my research....” She shook her head. “I don’t know where to go next.”

“How about a museum or something? Unless you have to get back?” 

They went to the Museum of Natural History and avoided the planetarium. They stood under the giant whale model and craned their necks upward. It reminded Sam uncomfortably of aliens descending and they moved on to giant redwoods and creepy stuffed creatures. There was a temporary butterfly exhibit that they walked through, watching colorful wings alighting on on every surface.

“Did you like butterflies as a kid?” He asked one she held her arm steady for an enormous blue one. 

“Not really. Biology was never my thing. I had a cat named Herman, but he liked my mom more than anyone else.” 

She went home again with him that night and made it officially not a one night stand. They both went back to work the next day, but when he came home she was already on the stoop talking with Philip.

It was comfortable. They made room for each other and went on with their lives. Sam still played poker, ran with Steve, shot arrows with Clint and had coffee with Rhodey. He still went home sometimes and helped his sister put up pictures in her new office. Jane did find a new project to absorb her, something to do with quasars that she explained while they were naked, using his body as a canvas for her roaming marker. It’d been one of the most bizarre and erotic experiences of his life. 

“Look,” Darcy had rounded on him after a poker game, “she’s not good at knowing herself.” 

“I think she’s better than you think,” he corrected. 

“I doubt it, but even if she is...I don’t know. She’s my friend. Be good to her.” 

“Or?” 

“Or nothing. You jump out of planes, I’m pretty sure my taser doesn’t scare you.” 

“We’re friends with benefits,” it sounded stupid said aloud. Darcy gave him a curdling look over her glasses and he vowed never to say it again. 

“You can see other people,” Jane pointed out not long after that. “I mean, that’s sort of the point.” 

“Is it?” He rolled over onto his stomach. “When do you think I’ve got time to find other people?” 

“I might. See someone else.” 

“You got a candidate in mind?” He prodded himself to see how it felt. To imagine someone else touching her, provoking that orgasm laugh. 

Sam didn’t have much to prove. She was gorgeous, brilliant and fun. She choose him among all the superpowered people she knew. He liked having her around, but if maybe on his poker nights she went out dancing and went home with someone else...well. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about that. Maybe he wouldn’t feel anything at all. 

“No,” she ran a hand over his thigh. 

“How about you let me know if you do?” 

“Okay, that seems fair.” 

She never did. Summer slid into fall and into winter again. Sam went down to his mother’s for Christmas, but came back for the Avenger’s New Year’s party. It was sedate, just a few dozen people and a lot of champagne. Thor was there, approaching Sam as soon as he was alone. 

“Hey,” Sam saluted him. 

“Hello,” Thor looked out over the city and then back to Sam. “It’s good to see you again.” 

“Is it?” 

“Of course,” Thor grinned wide and bright and genuine. “I have missed many of my Midgardian friends these past few months. I had thought that you might wish to take to the skies with me tomorrow. Already Tony has agreed for a flight.” 

“Where to?” Sam asked, aware of too many sets of eyes on them both. 

“I am unsure. I have left the destination in Tony’s hands. I suspect he will try and do something ridiculous, but I often enjoy when he does.” 

“Yeah, me too.” 

Steve casually walked closer as if to provide a well timed interruption and Sam gave him a minute shake of the head. 

“Our friends think that I would fight you,” Thor noted with definite amusement. “Over Jane, I suspect.” 

“Yeah, the thought had occurred.” 

“That is a Midgardian way of going about it,” an enormous arm went around his shoulders. “Women are not weapons, they cannot be won in battle. And if she says I have lost her, then I have. If she has chosen you, then she has. Come, let us drink to this new year and all that may come with it!” 

They did drink though Sam was careful not to try to match Thor’s intake. Eventually a crowd gathered around Thor’s boisterous stories and Sam slipped away. Jane stood at the railing, a blanket drawn around her shoulders. Darcy was spread out in a chair beside her, asleep. The cluster of Natasha, Clint and Bruce lingered in Sam’s peripheral vision, the gleam of bottle passing between their fingers. 

“Time is arbitrary,” Jane folded her arms over the railing. “It’s this measurement that we made up to explain things. There’s dozens of different starts to the year in different cultures. I know that and I still get excited each year. Like it really is a fresh start.”

“Me too,” he leaned in beside her, so they were pressed together. Her shoulder collided with his bicep. “What do you want to do with this one?” 

“Will you take me parachuting? I’ve never been and it looks like fun.” 

“Abo-fucking-loutly,” he grinned. “We can go tandem. It’s amazing. You’ll love it. Pure sky.” 

“Good. Let’s do that. What about you?” 

“I don’t know,” he watched the first salvo of a firecracker explode in white fire. “The last year has been pretty good. Hard to top.”

“There’s got to be something.” 

“Maybe I’ll take up macrame.” 

She elbowed him gently. 

“Come on. Think.” 

He let the fireworks cover him for a few minutes, before he offered, 

“Well, I was thinking of asking this chick to live me. You know. Roommates with benefits.” 

She went still, cocking her head to one side. 

“Oh god,” Darcy moaned. “You better say yes or I will. His apartment is actually clean!” 

“You don’t have to say yes,” Sam corrected immediately. “Really. It was just a thought.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

She stayed in the tower that night, but the next day, she was there with a duffel bag and a wrinkled brow. 

“I need a desk somewhere,” she looked around the space as if she hadn’t seen it before. 

“We can figure that out.” 

They didn’t. Instead, Bucky showed up two days later with a toolkit and a sheet of plywood. 

“Uh, hi?” Sam answered the door in his boxers. Jane was wrapped up like a mummy on the couch and she peered out from under her blanket like the world’s most adorable E.T. impression. 

“I’m going to build you a desk. Housewarming gift. It’s traditional.” Bucky informed him, then shouldered him aside. 

“Hi,” Steve said brightly, coming up the stairs with a dazed Philip on his heels and more wood in his hands. 

“I know you know to call first,” Sam complained. 

“I know a lot of things,” Steve agreed. “Which is why I brought a movie.” 

Bucky assembled the desk with minimal noise and Philip nervously offered Steve a joint. 

“No, thanks,” Steve smiled brightly. “You sure you should be doing that in here anyway, son?” 

“No, sir!” Philip twitched and disappeared back to his own apartment. 

They watched It’s a Wonderful Life with Jane’s color commentary folding Steve in half with laughter. 

Life just kept on keeping on. He worked hard and had friends. Most of the time when he got home now, Jane was tucked up at her desk, built by an ex-assassin. She discovered things and they named stars after her. After the third one, she presented Sam with a newspaper wrapped gift. Inside was a framed certificate claiming a far distant sun as ‘The Falcon’. 

“It’s near supernova,” she admitted. “So in a million years it won’t even exist. But still.” 

“It’s the thought that counts.” 

They never got married, never bothered with titles. He hung the certificate beside her accolades over her desk and that seemed like enough. His mother didn’t like her, but his sisters did, so that was alright. 

After all, he didn’t have much to prove.


End file.
